"Beauty and the Beast"

Coming late to the party on this one, although it turns out to be a very good Easter Week movie, what with the death and resurrection theme of everything being cursed and/or dying being made whole and/or alive again. So top marks in the happy endings category. Lots of nice things to be said too about the look of the movie in general and how dazzling the set pieces are, and how engagingly the animated furniture is depicted and voiced. Some of the singing is gorgeous. The unacknowledged hero is the horse named Philippe (which means lover of horses). Philippe goes from cart-horse to swift and elegant saddle horse without missing a beat; he can survive on his own outside the palace in the snow and be ready to gallop away at a moment's notice, and indeed gallop back; he stands up to wolves, understands English and could probably make a cup of tea if Mrs Potts were ever to take a break. My beef with the film is with the 'B' characters: Belle and the Beast. Belle, as everyone knows, is played by Emma Watson. She is excellent casting in the sense of being familiar to hundreds of millions of potential viewers from her long-term starring role in the Harry Potter franchise. She is also perhaps 'blank' enough in her acting abilities for those viewers to superimpose themselves onto her portrayal and therefore successfully invest themselves in the movie. But by the same token - to me at any rate - she still looks like a child. A slip of a girl, with no stature and, even worse, with no deportment. She clomps around in lace-up ankle boots, slouching and lumpen. Granted she does try hard in the ballrooms scenes to move more gracefully but it's too little too late. The damage has been done: she is just not believable as a beauty. And by the way, the word 'Belle' does not mean 'beauty', as per one of the songs: it's the adjective 'beautiful', in the feminine gender. It was only when Plumette, the peacock-like feather duster, was on screen that I was able to bask in the beautifulness advertised in the title. All the more so when Plumette becomes, at the end, the lovely Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The Beast, for his part, is far too handsome. We are told in the narration early on that the selfish brat of a prince was cursed by being transformed into "a hideous beast". We're told that, we're not shown it. The Beast's impressively masculine physique is built on harmonious lines, he has an expressive face (more than Belle's almost), lovely eyes and is apparently clean and nice-smelling. Stinking rich, of course, which doesn't count as a repulsive trait. Moreover his curse is something of a blessing in that it has turned him from a selfish fop into a well-read, sensitive soul who has gratitude for his "expensive education". What's not to like? It was only in deference to the teenage girls I was with at the cinema that I didn't burst out laughing at the Beast's transformation back into a man. 'Man' is putting it too strongly. Poor Dan Stevens, deprived of his ten-inch stilts and his Beastly bearing, emerges as a dishevelled long-haired blond, looking tiny and faintly embarrassed to be there. The close-up on his pink dewy skin and bright blue eyes accentuates the contrast with his Beast get-up. This makes him come across as more feminine than Belle. She is meant to be delighted with his new look. I would have had her adapt Cogsworth's line and tell her prince: 'Turn back into a Beast! Turn back into a Beast!'. Eventually she does ask him if he would consider growing a beard, which only provokes a cheesy response. The fuss (no doubt a self-serving fuss) about the gayness of one of the characters was misleading. There are two gay characters, and they duly recognise each other as part of the happy finale. More importantly, it's what appears to be the deliberate feminisation of the male lead that is the problem with this otherwise spectacular film.